NYTp1:Foraging for Votes:One-Doorbell-One-Vote Re-emerges

[DeepModem Mom]

FORAGING FOR VOTES
One-Doorbell-One-Vote Tactic Re-emerges in Bush-Kerry Race
By JOYCE PURNICK

Published: April 6, 2004


They call it the ground war. And as anticipated, it is back after a long hiatus, subtly changing politics as we know it. Or trying to....

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It is a matter of adaptation, or survival of the most flexible. With the country still so sharply divided that political analysts figure as few as 10 percent of voters are undecided, each side is fighting to find and bring out every last one if its voters, and persuade the "persuadables," too. That means competing door to door, computer to computer, Web site to Web site. A ground war to complement the air war....

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Republicans, shocked by the loss of the popular vote in 2000 and their razor-thin margin, if that, in Florida, credited Democrats with besting them on the ground in the campaign's last days. Vowing never to be caught short again, they put together a detailed plan (the "72-Hour Task Force") to beat their rivals at their own game in the 2002 midterm elections, and succeeded.

Now both parties have rediscovered their roots, with significant help from the new campaign finance law. It spawned nominally independent groups, largely on the Democratic side so far, that use unlimited "soft money" contributions for get-out-the-vote activities. In the past, much of that same money would have gone to television ads about candidates....

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(Both parties will be) campaigning retail as well as wholesale, at the high school football game and the church dinner, through Web sites and blogs and e-mail messages — techniques that, as Howard Dean demonstrated, were popular because they can be, or at least appear to be, personal. The pros even have a phrase for it: niche communications.

It is customized campaigning, appealing to (groups of voters with particular issues and concerns)....


http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/06/politics/campaign/06VOTE.html

[Florida_Geek]

1. Both have to understand that they could be signing up

voters that will vote against them and especially the repugs. It is a long time to Nov. and the war and economy probably will not get better. When you just had your job outsourced to India, the matter of gay marriages are not a big issue to you, IMHO.